


Casual Affairs

by irrationalPsychologist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Also I'm trash, M/M, Really I'm just filling in plot holes in our rp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:20:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2628173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrationalPsychologist/pseuds/irrationalPsychologist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm literally just filling in some plot holes in an rp I'm doing with a darling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dave's Delusions

Day 471 12:56:18 AM

Staying in my play pretend  
Where the fun ain't got no end

When you don’t want to see him, when you can’t see him, when you’ll break if you see him, he appears. Either behind your eyelids in your dreams, in a quick flash where he’s become arbitrary to a timeline, or when his face becomes the face of an enemy. The fight leaves you when you see his face, it wooshes out of you quicker than a kill blow, and someone else has to take over.

You fucking hate their pitying looks afterwards.

But worse still is when you’re filling your lungs with liquid ash. He gains power when you’re at your weakest, you swear. You can see implications of the dark brown highlights of his hair, the suggestion of the burgundy in his eyes, and the shine of white teeth when he snarls at you.

Not once have you seen your Karkat smile.

Instead, when you fill your dark room with haze, he yells at you as you relish his voice.

It’ll usually start out with a long sigh, whisking around your ears and drawing around your senses, sending a jolt down your stomach in anticipation. He’ll call out your name slowly, gently, and sometimes if you blow out the smoke just right, if the fan catches it just right, sometimes you can feel him stroking your cheek. He’ll ask softly, “Dave, what are you doing?”, which will inevitably making you jolt in surprise, because your mind is so damn good at fabricating his voice. When you open your eyes, through the smoke, you can see the vaguest outlines of his face.

You want to reach out and touch his cheeks, verify that he’s here, but his image will only dissolve in your hands, leaving you alone again.

“What are you doing to yourself?” He asks, barely above a whisper as his brows draw together in a confused frown. 

“Killing myself,” You smile at him sardonically, because you can’t handle him when he’s soft. You can’t handle Karkat’s gentleness, it hurts too much when he speaks quietly like you want him too.

“Obviously.” He snorts, disdain in his tone as his dark eyes narrow. He shakes his head, sighing. “Put the cigarette down, Dave. You’re not this stupid.”

“No.” You tell him, blowing more smoke into his face so the lines defining it become stronger, so you can see light and shadow contouring his cheeks and the curls in his hair. “No can do, babe. Sorry.”

“And why in the hell not?” Karkat snaps, a scowl crossing his face as you sigh in relief. “You’re toting around fifty cancer sticks at a time, sticking them in between your teeth even when you’re not smoking to ensure what? That you rot from the inside?”

“Karkat,” you sigh, smoke coming out from your nose and mouth, making you choke just a bit, but it’s worth it because it sketches out the rest of him. He’s drawn in tight, tense lines, his frown and his arms wrapped taut around his waist etched in deeply. 

He’s wearing one of your hoodies, you think, and you almost throw up.

“What?” He growls at you, his red eyes watching every drag accusingly. He wrinkles his nose, waving away the very thing solidifying. The smoke moves with his fingers, and the free air acts as an eraser, obscuring parts of him. You’re so desperate to see him again that you actually take a few more drags before actually replying, making sure you could see all of him again.

“I’m already rotten. I’ve already died, those stupid decomposers we learned about in biology have already taken up residence in my lungs. There’s no recovering me, baby.” You say, and it’s nothing but truth. You can’t feel any of the words you’re saying, you can only allow them to pass from your mind to your mouth.

And Karkat absolutely scowls, lunging forward and placing his hands on your shoulders. The contact is shocking, no one has touched you in months, and you buckle beneath the weight of his anger. 

He presses forward, and you’re almost nose to nose as he puffs angrily. You can actually see the redness of his cheeks when you’re this close, something substantial aside from the usual monochrome he’s usually painted in.

It takes a few moments of his staring for you to realize he’s not the one huffing and puffing, it’s you who’s panting and shaking. Karkat almost looks at you pityingly, you can see the spark behind his eyes, but he subdues it with squeeze to your shoulders. It’s barely there, but it’s so painful it makes you lose control of your posture, dropping until your hands and knees and pressed into the dirty carpet and you’re practically begging at Karkat’s feet. The cigarette burns as it touches your flesh, but you can’t find it in you to care.

“Don’t call me that.” He orders, the rage on his tongue making you shiver. “Don’t you dare call me that. You don’t deserve to call me that when you’re doing this to yourself.”

“K-Karkat-” You whimper pathetically, tilting your head up to look at him. “You- are you-?”

“I’m not.” He says, letting go, and you almost collapse in relief until his next words. “You are. You’re destroying yourself, and I won’t allow you to think that if you do, and you come find me, that I will think this is okay.”

“Please,” you beg, your legs shaking before they give out, and you sit back on your haunches before drawing yourself up. Your posture sags pathetically, and you sway drunkenly. “Please, please don’t leave me. Please.”

He crosses his arms, taking a step back as if being close to you was tainting him already. “Name one reason I should stay with you and give you the delusion that this is in any way okay.” He demands.

You sway even more, the world spinning around you as you can’t tell where the smoke begins and Karkat begins. You can’t even tell where he is, you can only see the red of his eyes, and you tilt your own up to his. “Because I love you,” you gasp out, choking on a sob before reaching blindly for him.

He disappears before you could touch him, leaving you alone with your charred hand and tears that burn worse.

Day 572

4:37:57 AM

Can't go home alone again  
Need someone to numb the pain

You stop smoking for all of one hundred days, terrified of seeing Karkat’s anger again. If you stop, that means he’ll still love you, right?

He’ll understand if you just have one cig. Just one.

He’ll understand, especially because you saw him tear Bro limb from limb forty times today. He has to understand.

That’s reasoning you give yourself as smoke begins to fill your room again. You close your eyes, pressing your back against the wall and letting yourself slide down as the comforting warmth fills your lungs.  
It takes longer than usual, but arms slowly wrap around your waist, so gentle that you swear your skin with flake and fall off under the treatment. “And you were doing so well…” Karkat murmurs in your ear, tsking. “I was so proud..” He added, and you can feel your heart splinter.

“I just need a pick me up,” You tell him, turning into those lovely warm arms of his. 

“And you just needed a pick me up on days fifty-three through four seventy-one.” He retorts, pulling away. You want to make a grab for him, but you know he’ll disappear again. You open your eyes, but Karkat isn’t there, and you panic until his voice sounds in your ear. “I’m not leaving you,” he assures you, pulling you up and tugging you towards the bed. He lays you down with ghostly touches and climbed in as well, tucking both of you in and tangling your limbs together.

“Why..?” You breathe, and he pressed a warm kiss to your forehead, taking the cigarette from your hand and rubbing it out.

“I love you,” Karkat shrugs, and you bury your face in his smokey shoulder, relieved tears streaming down your face. A hand makes its way through your hair, stroking gently, and you missed Karkat’s touch so much that the hand feels like all your nerves are singing. Tentatively, you wrap your arms around him, and cry harder in relief when he doesn't dissolve under your touch.

"Dave..." Karkat sighs, his voice adoring and loving and if anything it makes you break down more, clutch his shirt tighter. "Darling, doll," he adds, his ashen warm hands slipping under your shirt to gently run up and down your back, "Love. My love."

You're probably squeezing the life out of him when he says that, but you need him, need this, need to know he's here. "D'you mean that?" You cough through your tears, "D'you love me?" You pull away, just so you can see his face.

Karkat gives you a long, adoring look as he plays with a lock of hair that had fallen into your face. "Of course I do," he murmurs back, "I've loved you since we met, even though I didn't know it."

"Really?" You whispered, childish to a fault.

"Really." He nods and presses a kiss to your nose, then to your forehead, then to either one of your cheeks. Each one makes goosebumps travel along your arms and back, affection and gentleness feeling so unfamiliar after a year and a half of pain.

"Karkat?" You ask, and you hate the way your voice trembles, the way it has a just-cried tone to it.

"Yes?" He replies idly, his eyes half lidded as he busies himself wiping away your tears.

You close your eyes before asking. "Will you stay? For the night?" There's a slight begging edge to your voice now, and you can feel your cheeks color in humiliation under Karkat's steady hands.

He nods, carding fingers through your hair. "I'll stay," he promises, and you feel his lips on your chin, so close to yours, but somehow you know he won't kiss you. You tilt your head up anyway, but he only shifts so he can wrap both arms around your back and tuck your head underneath his chin.

But this is okay too, it's better than okay. You've needed to see him for so long, and to have him in your arms, and to be in his, is simply surreal. Surreal enough for you to work the fabric on his back, ensure that he won't leave. Please don't leave.

His hands go up and down your back, skimming over scabs and scars, and it should be painful but it feels so blissfully good that you can't complain. You close your eyes, resting your head on his chest and listening to his heartbeat.

"Darling," he murmurs, and your heart flutters in response. "Darling, go to sleep."

You tighten your hands in his shirt in protest. "But you'll be gone when I wake up."

Karkat sighs, burying his nose in your hair. "I'd be gone in the morning anyway," he murmurs, and you almost sob, dragging him impossibly closer.

"I can't stand seeing all of these other yous," you tell him honestly, speaking into his hoodie. "I can't- they're not you, they're just replicas of you, and they're so different from you." You sniff, and Karkat sighs. "And then they go off with their own D-Dave, and I always come back here alone."

He soothes your shaking limbs with a simple skim over your skin with his fingertips. "They aren't me," Karkat agreed, "but this needs to be the last time you see me. Until you get back."

"No!" You gasp, begging him, "Please, no, I need to see you." Tears resurface as you grab him tight enough to bruise, but you don't care, "I need you."

Karkat shakes his head, drawing his fingers through your hair. "No, you don't. I'm no use to you now. I'm as bad as the smoke."

"Karkat," you whisper, drawing yourself up, but you can't bring yourself to face him. You speak into his neck this time, haphazard and blubbering, "Please. Please, I do need you, more than anything. I need you, to-to stay here or else I'll go crazy, I'll - I'll flip my shit entirely if you leave me again, please don't leave me I love you so much-"

"Dave," he cuts you off softly, smiling gently against your hair. "You're much stronger than this. So much stronger. I believe in you, I always have. You can do this without me, I know it." He whispers, and it makes you cry harder.

You arch into him, demanding more of him but never getting enough. You're squeezing desperately, so hard he'd leave with black bruises. "Please, I can't, I can't- please-" you blubber, and he only hums softly, running his nails up and down your arm. 

"You're going to be okay," Karkat murmurs. "You're going to be okay. You're going to make it out of this, and it will be entirely you. I know you can do this. I know you can."

You can only nod hollowly, forcing yourself to quiet and try to relax under Karkat's touch like you've wanted to for so long. Everything is warm, everything is nice with him here.

Of course, your mind only allows you to sleep when under Karkat’s orders.

Day 622

2:21:32 AM

You're gone and

Please, please.

Please.

You beg the haze for him to come, so you can see him, so you can hear his voice and feel his fingers on your skin, but you know you don’t deserve it.

All you can feel is disappointment.

Day 788

1:47:01 AM

I gotta stay

“Please, please,” you don’t realize you’re begging aloud until you can hear your own voice reverberating off the walls. It’s entirely pathetic, you hate the way it sounds, but you’re so beyond desperate to hear your Karkat’s voice, not some spinoff that’s somehow different from the original. There’s always something different about their voices, their mannerisms, and it’s enough to drive you crazy with desperation to hear your Karkat’s voice,

“Please, babe, please come back to me,” You whisper to the walls, stroking your hand across the carpet. Maybe he’d sit here.

Maybe if you got in bed for him, he’d come.

You get up and climb into bed, rubbing out the cigarette like you saw him do. You cling to a pillow and close your eyes. Maybe he’ll come if you try to sleep.

Day 975

3:38:31 AM

High, all the time

It’s gotten to the point to where you’re back to square one, a cigarette constantly between your lips and everything beyond fighting and basic communication completely beyond your comprehension. You don’t care anymore, you’ve thrown yourself into a grey numb and nothing matters anymore but trying to find Karkat’s voice and trying to find more companions.

Shirtless had learned by now not to contest whatever you’re doing. You operate on silence unless it’s to give out instructions, and those are usually in quick, crackled sentences.

But now, you’re not working. Both of you are frazzled out, spent for another two days. He takes the couch as he usually does, and you hole up in your room.

You’re on your third cigarette, closing your eyes and taking drags with your legs sprawled out and your head tilted back like a sinner seeing the light. You stopped expecting him and started searching for him, looking for the line of a hoodie or sweater or the coloring of his cheeks and eyes and lips. 

You can’t see the real him as well as you can remember the smoky version of him. All implications and no definition, the mere suggestion of skin.

You can almost feel the warmth of his hands on you, but it isn’t enough. You stroke your hands around your shoulders and back, imitating the gentle paths his fingers took. You can’t reach around your back, so left your hands drift to your stomach.

Karkat appears behind your eyelids, all whisp and smoke as he leers at you. His hands - your hands - take over, and he sits between your legs. He strokes up your hips and to your abdomen, then up farther to your chest. You tilt your head back as he leans forward, gently kissing up your neck. His smirk burns into your skin as he nips and bites, his hands sliding down to your lower abdomen.

Your little moans are the only noise in the room now. You slip your hands down to unbutton your jeans and slide them down as Karkat does the same, tugging them down with a practiced ease. 

He continues his little assault on your neck as he palms you through your boxers, and your own hand can only desperately follow suit. He got you so hard so fast that it’s painful, and you’re muttering quiet “please”s around your moans, your hips twitching up with every grind.

Finally, he takes pity on you and switches sides, reaching into your boxers with impossibly hot hands and pulling you out. Karkat bites, hard, sending a white wave of pleasure across your vision as you gasp and arch, offering your hips to him. You can feel the upturn of his lips again, and he gently wraps his hand around your cock.

You groan loudly as your hand follows, and Karkat whispers a “shhh” into your skin. You raise a hand to your mouth, biting your knuckle, and he draws away from your neck to lock eyes with you. A groan tumbles from your mouth at his dark, confident expression, and you want so badly to kiss those tinted pink lips of his that you open your mouth slightly. 

But he shakes his head, tsking, and guides your hand back to your mouth chidingly. “Can’t have anyone hearing, can we, darling?” He asks in a low, smooth voice that almost makes you lose it right there. He smirks at your obedience, peppering brief, wet kisses on your jaw and neck. 

“Good boy,” He murmurs in your ear, nipping gently at the lobe, and his hand finally begins to move. You gasp loudly, a whining moan meeting your hand as every movements elicits blinding pleasure. Your back arches, and you strain as Karkat eases your shirt up to your chin so he can kiss down your chest. Each kiss burns but sears beautifully, and you fist your free hand in the carpet as he settles on his stomach, kicking his feet casually as he regards your cock with lidded eyes.

“P-please,” you whisper again, reaching out to stroke his hair away from his face. Karkat looks up at you with a deadpan, “really?” expression, and you almost apologize, worried he would leave you. But that’s until he leans up on one hand, still stroking you gently with the other, and licks his lips. A shudder makes its way down your spine, and he looks at you one last time before shielding his teeth with his lips and taking you into his mouth.

A loud, wanton moan pushes past your fingers, and you buck your hips up into Karkat’s wet heat. Something forces them back down, but you didn’t feel any weight pressing back. You didn’t care enough to contest as Karkat starts sucking, bobbing his head up and down as if he’d been doing it for years.  
You push his hair out of his face, panting out words of encouragement as your shoulders and the back of your head dig into the wall behind you. It hurts, because you’re stuck between trying to arch your back and the invisible force keeping you down. It hurts, but it’s a good hurt that aches and verifies that this is reality.

You’re close all too quickly, it’s been too long since you’ve even thought about touching yourself for you to last long. Every rasp of Karkat’s tongue, every bob of his head - hell, even the tiny noises of effort he made were pushing you close to the edge, faster than you could have anticipated.

Karkat looks up as soon as a murmured warning passes your lips, and locks eyes with you as he takes your entire length into his his throat.

“Karkat,” you cry as you come, your hips finally free to buck up as white scintillating stars take over your vision. You hold yourself there, panting in pure ecstasy as everything feels blurry yet brilliant at the same time. Your being practically pulses; you can feel your heartbeat in your toes and fingertips, so much that it almost hurts but doesn’t.

“Karkat,” you whisper, reaching out for him. He has to stay after this, right? You can feel warm hands tuck you back in, pull up your jeans and button back up.

“Karkat,” you try again, louder this time, but there’s no response as your shirt is pulled back down.

“Karkat, please-” you use your voice this time, and the only thing that comes in response is a searing kiss on your cheek. You look around in the darkness behind your closed eyes, and he’s nowhere to be seen.

You open your eyes, taking a shuddering breath as you look around the dim room. 

He left you alone again, with a shaking hand and choking tears with his name on your lips.

Day 1096

5:12:59 AM

All the time,  
To keep you off my mind  
Oh,

Summertime is the best time to be up way too late. You can watch the sunrise as you breathe in, choke, breathe out, and choke. That’s what Karkat said to you a few weeks ago when he visited last. His encounters became less amorous and more vindictive as he noticed you were smoking more.

You take a long drag and hold it in, closing your eyes as the acrid burn began to build up. It felt nice, this one thing you can allow yourself to feel.

“Really.” His voice lashes out at you, making you start and sputter, coughing out the lungful of fire. You snap your eyes open, and a completely defined Karkat, full olive skin and dark hair and red eyes stood before you with his arms irately crossed. “Are we being serious right now, Strider?”

“Karkat,” you breathe, because is this the real him? “Karkat, are you-”

“Shut the fuck up,” he snaps, batting your hand away before you can even reach. “Just shut the fuck up and listen, because this is so unbelievably pathetic that it’s making me retch. Literally, I’m on the verge of vomiting right now.”

No one had spoken to you like that in years, not with that harsh, abrasive tone. You’re momentarily stupefied, but then anger boils in your stomach. How dare he yell at you when he’s left you alone for so long. “No. You shut the fuck up and listen to m-”

He slaps you right across the face, and you fall right to your knees.

How fitting. He still has all the power over you. 

You tremble as you usually do when his anger points out the irrationality of your current situation and pulls it right into your face. He steps forward so his grey jeans are all you can see.

“Stop. This.” He orders, whisking the cigarette from your hand. He opens the window, letting in the warm summer air, and throws it down into traffic. “I’m telling you and not asking you. Stop. This. Now.”

“Karkat-” you try, your heart in your throat. “It’s just- it’s something to do, it takes the edge off of all of this. Please, please understand-”

His face suddenly becomes very, very close to yours. “I understand perfectly well that you’re fucking the rest of your team over with this shit. Do you think I would have sent you out here if I knew it would have turned you into this? You’re a shell.” He says cruelly, and you lower your face because you know it’s what you deserve.

“Fix yourself,” He orders, turning his back on you and walking right back out of your mind.


	2. Kat's Nighmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diving back about three years in the past before Karkat was friends with Dave. It's a dream, but also a memory? Really just an elaboration on Kat's earlier mentality. Major tw for self-harm and suicide.

It’s quiet.

Too quiet for your mentality to be anything but sick.

You can hear ambient music filtering in under the door, and it’s senseless and runs together with the smell of pot penetrating the steam from the shower. You’re hazy and you can barely move, let alone think your way out of the mess you’ve made of yourself.

You look down, flipping your arms and extending your legs and even dropping your gaze to your hips and stomach for a good measure so you can stare down at the sticky red ruin you’ve made of your skin. Your dark scars barely show under the cuts over cuts. Blood is dripping steadily still, mixing from the water, but still making the runoff turn pink.

Running your hand over the swelling wounds, you count the ones across and the ones up and down and the ones crosshatching over. The pattern repeats over most of your arms and thighs, but you took to writing poetry over your hips and writing as many pretty words as you could think of to try and overshadow the ugliness of your physique. 

You kind of hate that those are the scars that fade the fastest.

The water eventually cools to not-scalding, and you can’t take that. You’re still bleeding, and you send a glare at the shower’s wall. Someone else must have used all the hot water recently, even though you’ve been in the shower for at least twenty minutes.

There’s a knock on the door a few minutes later, when you’re just trying to get the willpower to remove yourself from the rapidly cooling stream.

“Kar?” Gamzee’s voice seeps through the cracks in the door, sounding a lot like the drug you know is swimming through his system. “You ‘kay in there, best friend?”

“I’m fine,” you manage, resting your head on the white tiles. Of course you’re fine, you have to be fine. There were no highlighter or marker x’s on your skin this time.

“You sure?” He asks, and the door creaks as he leans on it. “You’ve been in the bathroom for an hour.”

Have you? It seemed like only ten or fifteen minutes, but you suppose time gets away from you when you have a blade in hand. You blink, then set your hand on the handle. “Yeah. I just needed to think. Thanks, Gamzee.”

He pauses for a long moment, and you can hear the gears turning is his smoky head. “Do you need help in there?”

It’s code. You purse your lips, rolling them back and forth before nodding. “Yeah, Gamz, I do. Please.”

There’s a long, drawn out sigh, and you know he’s sober enough to be disappointed. “Alright. Let me in, then.”

You shut off the shower and grab a towel and wrap it around your waist haphazardly, avoiding looking at yourself in the mirror. Gamzee’s face when you open the door is almost enough for you to slam it back shut, and he gives you a slow, red-eyed once over. “Anywhere else?” He asks, and you make a vague gesture to your thighs.

“You went to montherfuckin’ town this time, didn’t you?” He says bluntly, and you nod hollowly. “Go to my room, I’ll fix you up, right as rain.” He ruffles your wet hair and prods your back gently, urging you towards the hallway and back into his room. 

There’s a sizable amount of relief that he didn’t question your motives or what happened and just unquestioningly helps you. You sit on his bed, breathing in the smell of pot and watching some of the red lines on your arms bead up a bit until Gamzee comes back, his bandaging kit in hand. He talks absently as he works, dribbling hydrogen peroxide across the stupid marks you made and wrapping them up slowly and tightly. He’s almost as practiced as you are when it comes to bandaging you up, barely touching the wounds and speaking as if they weren’t even there. 

He always smiles when he’s done, tucking the last piece under the bandages so it wouldn’t come loose. He brings you fresh, loose fitting clothing that smells like warmth and spice and something else you can’t place, and you hug his clearly too large sweatshirt to yourself and walk to his window.

It’s odd, but suddenly Gamzee’s house is on top of hundreds of stories. You can’t even see the road as you open the window and step out, sitting on the windowsill and swinging your legs. Gamzee joins you, all long limbs and polka dot pajama pants, and smiles at the dark abyss below.

“What’s it like to die?” You blurt after a few minutes of wind in your hair and sun in your eyes. Gamzee looks at you in surprise for a few moments, tilting his head as his grey eyes take on a more thoughtful look. 

“Prob’ly a lot like living.” He says with a small wistful smile. “Painful.”

You wiggle a little closer to the edge, looking curiously down at the darkness. Gamzee sets a comforting hand on your shoulder, bringing you close for a brief hug. “What’re you thinking about, man?”

“What do you think?” You retort, and Gamzee’s hand slides down to the center of your back. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m thinking, I’m so fucking messed up after this happens. You know that.”

He chuckles. “I know.”

You slip closer to the edge.

Gamzee pushes you off.

And you can’t say you screamed or resisted.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically the premise at this point is that Dave left for three and a half years to fix something, but he starts smoking and becomes delusional. Basically, if he thinks he deserves punishment, that's what Karkat will give him. If not, Karkat will indulge him.


End file.
